any radeon 8500 le experts out there?

[tdean]

i reinstalled my os etc and now serious sam crashes constantly. other apps work fine, and serious sam works fine on my other system which is identical except it has a geforce 3 ti200 instead of the 8500. i disabled sb16 emulation for my sb live. the only thing that is new is my radeon 8500 le. i am running the latest drivers and i upgraded serious sam to the latest version and reinstalled it three times along with directx 8.1. running 98se. here is the error i get:


DDHELP caused an invalid page fault in
module <unknown> at 0000:baab99e7.
Registers:
EAX=baab99e7 CS=0177 EIP=baab99e7 EFLGS=00010286
EBX=00000010 SS=017f ESP=007dfd3c EBP=007dfd4c
ECX=00000000 DS=017f ESI=00008dc2 FS=30d7
EDX=00008dde ES=017f EDI=007dfd54 GS=30bf
Bytes at CS:EIP:

Stack dump:
01003948 007dfd54 00008dc2 007dfd9e 007dfd6c bff7363b 00000110 0000007e 00000010 02580320 8d9c30cf 0000017f 007dfd80 bff94407 30bf8dc2 000030bf



....the birds seemed to be calling him, thought caw....

 

[phsstpok]

Sounds like a component of DirectX is corrupt. DD as in DDHELP usually stands for a DirectDraw. I'd try reinstalling DX 8.1. Since you are using Win98SE you will be able to use DirectX Eradicator which will make it possible to do a clean reinstall. This beats manually deleting all the DD.. files plus others and editing the registry.

You can get DirectX Eradicator at the link below.

<A HREF="http://www.freewebz.com/firecat/" target="_new">http://www.freewebz.com/firecat/</A>

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

 

[bront]

Make sure you disable AGP fast writes in the bios. That seems to be a sore spot for the 8500.

However, I agree that it's likely a DX8 issue, not a hardware or driver issue.

"Search your feelings you know it to be true, I am your... twin sister" - Darth Vader

 

[tdean]

you sir, are correct!!! the dx 8.1 on the cd must have been bad. i used that erradicate software and installed with a diff cd and it works fine. nice work!!

....the birds seemed to be calling him, thought caw....

 

[phsstpok]

Corrupted DirectX seems to happen to me when updating nVidia drivers about 1 time in 10. Via drivers seem to get messed up just as frequently, more often with old MVP3 chipsets. Because of the latter I learned to do clean installs of Via 4-in-1 drivers, nVidia drivers, and DirectX. Every time I need to change anyone of these then I reinstall all three. I also do this when I update a BIOS because for some reason Windows often thinks there is new hardware when you change the BIOS.

I'm not sure what is needed now that I have a Radeon 8500. I used to use Detonator Destroyer to clean up old nVidia file. I don't know of a similar utility for Ati drivers.

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

 

[tdean]

hmm... i dont know of any ati utils at all. i just thought id take the ati plunge this time around after 2 nvid cards.

....the birds seemed to be calling him, thought caw....

 

[phsstpok]

Same here, two nVidia cards.

So far I'm very happy with the 8500. Performance is a about what I expected. I knew about the better video quality of the 8500 and it's true but there was a bonus.

I had modified my Geforce cards for better quality and that worked quite well. However, I picked up a cheap KVM switch (a mistake) so that I could use two computers at one location. I didn't know how badly a cheap one can affect video quality, terrible ghosting. I used electrical contact treatment on all the connectors and that helped quite a bit but not enough. When I installed the 8500 I found the problem is not even noticable. If I adjust brightness and contrast just so then it's completely masked. Now I don't have to give up the KVM.

I thought that the extra sharp image of the 8500 would make matters worse. All I can figure is the 8500 has superior signal strength. Whatever, it's working for me.


<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

 

[tdean]

gggrrrrr...... well, things were going well. no ddhelp errors, but now it just randomly crashes to my desktop. this blows. no more ati drivers for me.

....the birds seemed to be calling him, thought caw....

 

[phsstpok]

Did you try as I suggested, clean installs, removing old drivers then reinstalling?

Having just switched from nVidia cards you might want to get Detonator Destroyer to clean up all old nVidia files. You can get it at <A HREF="http://www.guru3d.com" target="_new">http://www.guru3d.com</A>.

What motherboard/chipset do you have?

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 06/12/02 01:51 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[tdean]

i have wiped out the system completely twice and installed everything fresh for this vid card. my brother has an idetntical system (with a geforce 3 instead) and there are no problems at all. i had the g3 for a while with no problems. my mobo is an aopen ak73 pro(a). i am using v4.31 via 4 in 1's.

....the birds seemed to be calling him, thought caw....

 

[phsstpok]

I prefer the 4.38 drivers but 4.31 were the drivers I previously used, not liking 4.32-4.37. I have an Epox 8KTA3PRO which has the same KT133A chipset.

The other things I can think of include disabling AGP 4X and AGP Fastwrites in BIOS setup. Also, make sure the 8500 isn't sharing an IRQ. Lastly, rule out the sound card by temporarily removing it. On this note you might want to remove all unecessary PCI cards just for testing purposes.

Hope you find the problem.

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

 

[tdean]

i might try those drivers. i think its weird that everything works perfectly with the geforce but not with the radeon.

....the birds seemed to be calling him, thought caw....

 

[phsstpok]

Don't forget to uninstall the old 4-in-1 drivers before installing the new ones. Even Viatech recommends this.

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

 

[tdean]

i do that by running the install of the previous drivers, right? then selecting "remove"?

....the birds seemed to be calling him, thought caw....

 

[phsstpok]

You can use the NEW installer to remove the OLD drivers. Select normal install. It will ask you if you want to install each component. At the bottom you will see an option to uninstall instead.

Incidentally, for a Radeon I found I have to change the order of my "clean installs". Uninstall 4-in-1's. Don't reboot. Run the 4-in-1 installer again this time allow the drivers to load. Reboot when prompted. When Windows restarts unninstall ATI drivers. When Windows restarts the next time it will want to load standard VGA drivers. Let it. You'll probably have to reboot again yet again. Uninstall DirectX with DirectX Eradicator. Don't remember if this makes you reboot. Now load DirectX. After that you can load the Radeon 8500 drivers.

Everything should be perfect if you do as above.

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

 

[tdean]

excellent..... i will do that today and let you know tonight. thanks for the info.

....the birds seemed to be calling him, thought caw....

 

[tdean]

you know what i was just thinking? i dont think the creative drivers are dx 8.1 compliant!! it could be those pricks that are crashing my system!! ( i know you mentioned taking out my sound card etc) im gonna see if they have any updated drivers. (dont hold your breath)

....the birds seemed to be calling him, thought caw....

 

[phsstpok]

I forgot a biggy, the d*mn Via 686B bug. If you don't know what this is you can read about it at <A HREF="http://www.viahardware.com" target="_new">http://www.viahardware.com</A>. Download the fix, George Breese's PCI Latency patch.

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

 

[tdean]

oh believe me..... im all too familiar with that. what a nightmare. i have all the patches installed. i really think its the friggin creative drivers. i was just reading an article in pc gamer where the reviewer said to expect system crashes like he had if you own a sound card like his thats not dx 8.1 compatible yet. he said he has the sb live. hmmmm..... now what.... i cant run the 8500 without dx 8.1 and i cant run my sound card WITH dx 8.1....

....the birds seemed to be calling him, thought caw....

 

[phsstpok]

Don't know what to tell you.

My sound card is really old, maybe 8 years. It's a Turtle Beach ISA sound card. Don't have any of the problems that SB Live users complain about. No instabilities. No crackling sound. Game performance is hardly impacted, no difference in benchmark scores with or without sound. The TBS has only two channel sound but at least it sounds better than Via AC97 by a long shot. I really hate to give it (spend money) but I'll have to do so with my next motherboard. I won't be buying an SB Live in any case. Maybe a Santa Cruz or Philips Acoustic Edge II, or perhaps just the cheaper Rhythmic Edge II.

Don't know what to tell you except I, personally, would not have an SB live on a KT133A mobo. Why don't you test with no sound and if that works try the onboard sound (if you have you in fact have onboard sound)? If that works too then dump the SB Live.

I hope the problem doesn't turn out to be a Radeon 8500/KT133A combination issue. So far I haven't experienced the problems that you are having. In fact the system has been more stable than when I had the Geforce2. I'm once again running my Tbird 1000 at 1500 mhz vs 1333 mhz.

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>